Chitwood indicated that the suspect, Richard Plotts, has a long history of violence.

“This guy obviously has some very, very serious mental health issues and violent tendencies, that’s the issue. Here’s a guy that’s barred from a homeless shelter. How do you get barred from a homeless shelter, because you’re scared to death of him? I don’t know if he’s given a statement yet. I don’t think he has. It’s anybody’s guess why he went off,” he said.

Superintendent Chitwood On Mercy Wellness Center Shooting

He also said Plotts had enough ammunition and was prepared to do far more damage if he had not been shot himself by Dr. Lee Silverman.

“He was ready for mass murder, and if the doctor doesn’t have a gun, he commits mass murder, because by the time anybody got there to be able to confront this guy with a weapon — police officers — he would’ve shot everybody that had to be shot. He would’ve ran out of bullets. That’s what he would have done, because he was reloading when he was tackled by the hospital personnel after they were shot,” Chitwood said.

Chitwood also rejected policies that many hospitals have in place that restrict or ban guns, even by police.

“These people that do these shootings, these mass massacres, they take seconds. By the time the police get there, 99 percent of the time it’s over. A lot of the hospitals, and I’ll use my department as an example, we’ve been told they don’t want us in the hospital with guns. We’re the police…There are several officers in various hospitals around the area, Fitz being one of them. They told us when we take people down to the catchment area, that they don’t want us walking in with guns. That’s ridiculous,” he stated.